Celco Heating and Air Conditioning Blog : Archive for July, 2014

If it’s time for you to replace your thermostat in Westport, there are a few options from which to choose. It’s important to work with a professional when choosing, installing or replacing your current thermostat to ensure you get the right one for your home. Why? The right thermostat should be energy efficient, easy to use and improve overall comfort. For almost 40 years, Celco Heating and Air Conditioning has helped Westport, CT customers with their thermostat replacement, and we can help you, too.

Thermostat Types

There are several different types of thermostats on the market today, and each has its own benefits:

Digital

Digital thermostats have easy-to-read faces and a precision of temperature control which you won’t get with a slide or dial thermostat. Upgrading to a digital thermostat can help reduce energy use, which may help lower monthly energy bills.

Programmable

A digital programmable thermostat allows you to program, in 7-day loops, the cooling for every day. You can program for daytime and nighttime, for times of day when no one is home and any other type of scheduling you may need. With a programmable thermostat, set up your program once and let the thermostat do the rest.

Wi-fi

A wi-fi thermostat connects to your home’s internet outlet and allows you to monitor, manage and program your temperature settings from any kind of smart device. Most wi-fi thermostats come with a free app you can easily download for remote access.

Benefits of a New Thermostat

There are several important benefits to installing a new thermostat:

Better energy efficiency

Easier to use

Programmable

Remote access (with wi-fi)

Better temperature control

Increased comfort

7 Day Program Options

Full week – with up to 4 sessions

7-day – unique settings for each day with up to 4 periods per day, every day of the week

5-2 day – 5 days of programming for weekdays with separate settings for weekend days

5-1-1 day – 5 days of programming for weekdays with independent settings for both Saturday and Sunday

If you are ready for thermostat replacement in Westport, CT, call the experts you can trust: Celco Heating and Air Conditioning.

Energy efficiency is good all around: it’s good for your air conditioning system, your home, your monthly energy bills, and the environment. There have been some great tools developed to help property owners with energy efficiency, and a zone control system is the epitome of this kind of tool. By using independent thermostats wired into a single control panel that controls a series of dampers, a zone control system in your Bridgeport home gives you tremendous control over how you cool individual spaces throughout your property. The best way to gain full advantage of a zone control system is to have it professionally installed, as Celco Heating and Air Conditioning has done for Bridgeport customers for over 35 years. Interested in knowing what a zone control system can do for you? Let’s take a look:

Better energy efficiency – a zone control system allows you to cool only what you need, when you need it, and at the temperature you desire. If there are rooms or zones that don’t need cooling, you can shut it off – something you can’t do with

Customized comfort – it can be very hard to accommodate everyone’s cooling needs inside your home, but with a zone control system, you can program different temperatures for different areas, customizing your cooling as needed

Less wear-and-tear on your system – with a zone control system, you cool only what you want; this can mean less cycling for your air conditioner, helping to reduce normal wear-and-tear

Reduces cooling challenges with special architecture – vaulted ceilings, loft space and wall-to-ceiling windows can pose challenges when it comes to evenly cooling your home. With a zone control system, you can separate these spaces from other areas of the house in order to cool them effectively without impacting your whole home

Get the Ultimate Control with a Zone Control System

Zone control systems give you a level of control over your air conditioning in Bridgeport that you just can’t get with a single home thermostat. Since these systems require understanding ductwork, electrical circuitry and motorized dampers, it is always best to have a professionally-trained technician conduct the installation.

Call Celco Heating and Air Conditioning today and schedule an appointment to discuss how a zone control system can work for you.

Here is something you may not have known about your air conditioning: it helps to dehumidify your home. The evaporator coil in the inside cabinet removes heat from the air, but as it removes heat it also removes moisture, which gathers along the coil and then drips down into a pan and a drainage system. When you hear the sound of water inside your AC, that’s water vapor behing removed from your home’s air.

There is a bit of bad news to this bite of information, however: an air conditioner’s dehumidifying power is rarely enough to make your home more comfortable, or to protect it from the dangers of high moisture levels. Air conditioners are not designed specifically to dehumidify; to handle that properly, you need to have a dedicated whole-house dehumidifier installed into your ventilation system.

We will see that your air conditioning gets the full benefit of a quality whole-house dehumidifier.

For assistance choosing among the many available dehumidifiers in Norwalk, CT, call Celco Heating and Air Conditioning and speak to one of our indoor air quality professionals.

How does a dehumidifier help my air conditioning?

The main job that a dehumidifier does for your home is make the people inside it more comfortable. When humidity is lower, the human body can easily release heat through sweat. As the vapor level in the air increases, evaporation through sweat slows down, and the body feels hotter because of trapped heat. With a dehumidifier working for you, your home will feel cooler. And that means you will need to run your air conditioner much less in an effort to keep cool. In situations with very high humidity, the comfort resulting from the power of a well-installed dehumidifier will be enough that you can cut your air conditioning use by 30%, which will lead to significant savings. (The dehumidifier does require power to run, but it is negligible compared to running the AC.)

The reduction of work the air conditioner must do also means the air conditioner will not wear down as fast. You can expect fewer repairs visits from technicians and a system that will last longer before needing replacement.

The lowering of humidity also means less moisture condensation inside the air conditioner. Too much condensation moisture in an AC can cause clogs in the drain from the growth of algae, and you will end up with an overflowing pan and water damage around the air conditioner.

Should I have a dehumidifier installed?

If your home is always stuffy, hard to cool, and you often find water moisture on your windows and other surfaces, then you should definitely invest in a whole-house dehumidifier. For a second opinion, call Celco Heating and Air Conditioning, where dehumidifiers in Norwalk, CT and other parts of Fairfield and New Haven Counties are one of our specialties.

You may think of your air conditioning unit as a system you can turn on, relax with, and mostly forget about. This is partly true; your AC provides you with comfort and ease, and modern advances allow you to set your unit to turn on and off at scheduled times so you don’t have to worry about manual adjustments. However, if you’ve never thought about once yearly residential air conditioning maintenance, you may be missing out on some crucial benefits. The following lists some of the ways you can benefit from residential air conditioning maintenance this summer.

Pay Less on Your Energy Bills

If any of the components of your system need to be cleaned, lubricated, or adjusted, you may be spending more on your energy bill every month than you need to. People who schedule regular maintenance to address these types of maintenance issues often see improvement on the efficiency of their system.

Improve Performance

The reason a poorly-maintained system may cost you more money every month is because your system has to work extra hard to make up for any parts that aren’t as clean or level as they need to be. Paying attention to these minor issues may not only lower your bills but also improve the performance of your entire system.

Reduce the Likelihood of Future Repairs

A system that is not well-maintained is more likely to break down without notice. Calling a technician for AC maintenance reduces the chances that your system will break down from premature wear and tear cause by blocked components or other issues that a technician can easily detect.

Find Out about Issues You Can Address Right Now

An air conditioning specialist can often determine when your system is at risk for future repair issues. During maintenance, a technician will usually tell you whether something in your system may cause problems for your AC in the future and whether you should schedule further repair services. Because of this, you can address the problem now rather than wait until your unit fails when you need it most.

Don’t wait any longer to gain these benefits. For residential air conditioning maintenance in Fairfield, call Celco Heating and Air Conditioning today!

If you grew up in the United States, you probably first saw John Trumbull’s painting of the Signing of the Declaration of Independence in an elementary schoolbook. This oil-on-canvas 12’ x 18’ painting hangs in the rotunda of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. It is one of the most famous symbols of freedom in the country and almost every citizen can conjure it from memory.

Except… the painting isn’t of the singing of the Declaration of Independence. The actual title of the work is Declaration of Independence, and although it does portray an important moment in the history of the document that announced the Thirteen Colonies’ decision to break away from British rule, the event in the painting occurred on June 28, 1776, not July 4, 1776.

John Trumbull, a Connecticut native who fought in the Revolutionary War and whose father was the state governor, was commissioned to create the painting in 1817. He did painstaking research on the figures in the picture and also visited Independence Hall to see the actual chamber where the Second Continental Congress met. Trumbull only included 42 of the original 56 signers, because he could not find adequate likenesses for 14 or them, and added a few figures who were not present (most of whom declined to sign the actual document). In fact, the men depicted in the painting had never been present in the same room at one time.

So if the painting does not portray the singing of the Declaration of Independence, what is happening in the image? The Trumbull’s scene depicts the presentation of the draft of the declaration to the Continental Congress for editing and approval. The five-man drafting committee (John Adams, Roger Sherman, Robert R. Livingston, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin) is handing over their finished work, which congress would then edit carefully over the next few days before voting on it and signing it on the day that we now celebrate as the start of the United States of America.

One last, odd, fact: two of the five-man drafting committee, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, both died on the July 4—although many years later.

Our family at Celco Heating and Air Conditioning hopes that your Fourth of July (or Twenty-Eighth of June if you decided to start celebrating early) is a memorable and happy one.